Tarangire National Park 2

This is day 2 of our trip to Tarangire National Park. Read about day 1 here.

day 2

I had this dream that while Mr Mechanic was home with the baby, I would get an angelic sort of sleep these two nights at the lodge.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
My seven year old, with all her energy woke me up bright and early at 5 am, jumping on me in bed and happily proclaiming: “I read all the books!”

(I had tried to be clever and brought books for the girls to read/entertain themselves with, especially for early mornings like this… I guess she could have woken me at 4:30 without the books, so this is *sort* of a win?)

Good thing there was endless coffee at breakfast, so I fueled up and we headed back out on our adventure.

elephants

Tarangire National Park is the place to visit in Northern Tanzania to view elephants.
The park hosts many other creatures and visitors will see a wonderful variety of Tanzanian wildlife, but the elephants stand out.
Tarangire has a large population of elephants (the largest ‘per capita’ in Tanzania) and they are adamantly working to protect the largest land mammal from poaching.

I was probably annoying, but I don’t know how not to say ‘aahhh…’ every time I see a baby elephant.
The girls shared my enthusiasm and there was lots of coo-ing and disgustingly sweet noises in our vehicle.

We paused for lunch on a quiet, shaded hill overlooking a swampy area. The view allowed us to observe a small herd of elephants enjoying the cooler weather in the swamp. After eating our fill (Sangaiwe Lodge makes a great lunch box!), we returned to the safari car to get a closer look at that swamp.

After parking beside some other vehicles, we took photo after photo of the elephant family, complete with lots of little babies. The other safari cars drove away after a little while, but we stayed around.
Then, elephants started to approach the road ahead of us. We all grew silent with excitement as the elephants came closer. Four adults lined up along the road but didn’t venture across.

It was the largest, with long tusks and heavy feet that took the first steps across. Then he stopped, turned his whole body facing opposite our car and aggressively began flapping his ears, dust turning around him.

The tension was palpable. Immediately our driver reversed the car, and we watched in silence as the elephant family (while keeping an eye on us) walked across, escorting their cute little ones along.
I will never forget the feeling of fear and awesomeness as the elephant regarded us and basically told us to MOVE.

It was for the calves, our driver told us, that the elephant wanted us to move. They are very protective of their babies.
We could sense that they did not fear us at all, the big guy was being courteous to give us a warning. They could have overturned our vehicle if they wanted.
Elephants are the largest land mammal on the planet and the adults have no natural predators; they do not fear humans.

The elephant parade continued on their peaceful way, and I took some deep breaths while the girls released some nervous giggles.

We enjoyed a longer game drive today and we remained in the park until early evening.
Our driver listened intently to the radio communication and discovered where a lion was spotted. We found a herd of wildebeests and their friends, the zebra enjoying a peaceful drink. There, hiding in the shade of a tree was a crouching female lion. She was difficult to spot, her coat a perfect camouflaged in the dry grass.
We were probably ruining her hunting, showing up and putting the zebra on high alert (but we like zebra and didn’t want to see one becoming dinner).

We returned to our lodge, enjoyed another incredible dinner, and went to bed early after a good day in Tarangire National Park.

And we didn’t get stepped on by an elephant!

Read about Day 3.